Earth breaks 20th century’s temperature record – NASA

Earth breaks 20th century’s temperature record – NASA

Global Surface Temperatures for April 2016: NASA GISS

Bengaluru | Red Newswire | May 15 4:37 PM IST.

NASA released global temperatures data this Saturday which has revealed that this April, earth has recorded the highest temperature ever and across the globe. The data also shows a huge margin between the actual temperature and the average temperature.

2016 has set a new record in the NASA’s database as the warmest year, even though later this year we might see cooler temperatures.

The rate with which global warming is increasing, it wont shock you to know that the this year’s global temperatures have broken the record of 20th century average by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. And this increase has come in the last 7 months itself. The record wasn’t broken till October 2015.

NASA started keeping a record of global temperatures since 1880. The recently signed Paris Climate Agreement specified that the countries should try to limit the global warming caused by human activities to under 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The data shows how drastically our environment has changed and how close we are to crossing the safe line.

Image: Twitter/ClimateOfGavin

Experts say that if the global warming increases by 2 degrees, it can have dire consequences. The sea level can increase sharply owing to the melting of ice sheet, loss of West Antarctica and of course mass extinction of several species.

The second warmest April was recorded back in 2010 with a rise of 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit compared to 1.99 degrees Fahrenheit of this April.

Many nations including India, Thailand and other South East Asian regions had been experiencing deadly heat waves.

The climate monitoring tools have shown that the Arctic ice sheet is very thin this time of the year and this could mean another potential melt season is in progress.

Now to add to the damage, we have El Niño. Some tropical pacific regions are already experiencing El Niño conditions. However, forecasts have it that a La Niña event might occur by the autumn leading to release of heat from the ocean and putting an end to warmer months.

However, as long as greenhouse gas emissions are in progress, we cannot expect global warming to fall. The concentration of main greenhouse gas i.e., carbon dioxide, has also hit a new high.